"Sigmund Freud once wrote of Jewish jokes: "I do not know whether there are many other instances of a people making fun to such a degree of its own character. " Why this should be so is the subject of Jewish Humor, an erudite, opinionated, and hilarious examination of comedy as the mirror of culture, woven around more than a hundred of the best Jewish jokes - some classic, some newly minted - ever compiled. " "The jokes are analyzed by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, a well-known authority on Jewish life who is as celebrated for his wit as for his scholarship. Through humor, Telushkin identifies the keystones of Jewish character: family love and torments; relations with God; the push of antisemitic oppression and the pull of assimilation; chutzpah and its flip side, self-denigration; the love of learning, the passion for arguing, the commitment to justice - and others. The specific issues Telushkin addresses include how Jews cope with persecution and discrimination (read how the most common antisemitic canard is punctured on page 107); how Jews view money and financial success (for the funny, shorthand version, see page 34); what Jews think about sex (there's a complex of jokes on pages 86-97); how Jews see rabbis and other religious leaders (the truth is bared on pages 149-159); what Jews think about violence (the one kind they like appears on pages 97-104); what Jews think about assimilation and intermarriage with non-Jews (take a guess or take a look at pages 125-145); and how Jews see other Jews (judge by the joke on page 82). " "Insightful, sometimes stinging, and always funny, Jewish Humor offers no less than a portrait of the Jewish collective unconscious. It is destined to become the classic work on the subject. "--Jacket.